Tanlic wrote:210 sqm.........I was going to ask him to dig one more and bury him in it and not pay but he was a nice guy so gave it a miss

If you think that's a fair price, then far be it for me to say otherwise. I had 51 bore pile holes dug out, all the dirt moved, and then sand spread over the area. My house is 450 sq metres. You can read it and see it at viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1864 I took all the advise I could get from everyone because I'd never built in Thailand before, but as the Thais say "Up to you" and what some think is a fair price, others might not.

No worries Roger after reading a fair bit of your building story I can appreciate your concern.

Fortunately I have looked after 40 condos in BKK for the last 10 years and have seen what goes wrong and why it goes wrong so hopefully I can avoid most of the pitfalls.

As far as Mr Digger goes I could have had my squad dig the holes by hand or I could have spent hours on the phone trying to find a company who would come out immediately. I could have even gone round getting a dozen quotes while my squad stood about twiddling their thumbs.

Or I could take the advice of a local who knew the guy we got and said he could come right away and would do the job very quickly.

Had I decided on using my squad I would probably be about a fifth done at best. If I had found someone from Udon or Sakon they would probably said they would come on Monday.ay and my time in Sakon from BKK would have been wasted.

Instead I summed up the situation thinking the guy would take 2 days or maybe even 3 having worked with Thai's for 15 years. So I agreed a set price.

As it turned out he finished in a day and we have already started the footings so as far as I am concerned I won a watch.

My squad are very well trained as you can see

I have got a couple of older guys too

When I ordered the roofing yesterday I told the shop manager there was no hurry and he could deliver the material anytime in the next 4 to 6 weeks and I'd give him a call.

I guess anytime to a Thai means anytime because today at 3pm the steel and smartboard turned up:-

Luckily Mama and Papa have plenty room to store the stuff so at least I won't be sitting waiting for it to turn up when I need it.

You did OK on the price of yr excavator and the promise to remove any left over dirt. We're in Udon and needed an excavator and truck for a day's work in February of this year. We did do the ringing round 6 or 7 folks for a price and the best we got was Baht 9000. About page 15 of my building story has the full account.

Tanlic wrote:When I ordered the roofing yesterday I told the shop manager there was no hurry and he could deliver the material anytime in the next 4 to 6 weeks and I'd give him a call. I guess anytime to a Thai means anytime because today at 3pm the steel and smartboard turned up:-

Lol Tanlic - We ordered 12 2000 litre DOS water tanks for our under house tank farm, to be delivered in 2 months time. I am not sure the project Manager was overly amused when they turned up on his office doorstep 2 days after the order was placed! Such punctuality is a bit frightening, especially as the tank delivery involved a ferry trip too!Good luck with your build - you appear to be off to a flying start!

Things have gone really smoothly so far (touch wood). What amazes me is how quickly things are delivered...I don' mean the roof lol.

My main guy is off getting his car fixed but everyone has turned up for work..we got a call from papa telling us we were tuñing low on stones and sand so we ordered some more...When I got to the site and saw how little was left my first thouht was we won't be getting much work done today5 minutes later the sand arrived and the stones came shortly after...it seems too good to be true but long may it last.

Our plan is to get the walls plumbing roof windows and ceilings and doors done then stop for a while as we don't intend to move here for about 3 years so we are not in a hurry.

Plus I am far from rich and want to save a bit by doing all the carpentry work myself as most Thais couldn't hang a door if their life depended on it and walk in wadrobes are as easy as lego to fit out...the stuff index and the like sell I can make for 1/5th of the price.

Can anyone advise me on water tanks...what size and how many? We are only 3 people but have 3 bedrooms and will have friends staying from time to time

Slab will be finished tomorrow. That will be 18 days they will have been working in total. 35 colums for the footings 2m deep. No idea if that is fast slow or average? All the toilet and floor drains exactly where I want them.

Went to the shop today to buy a roll of plastic dpc and got hit with an extra cost for the roof. It turns out the lady got the price wrong for monier tiles in the colour we want....jumped up to 33 baht per piece. Being a crazy Scot scared of no one I kicked up blue murder and got them doen to 30.5 baht.....saved me 8k so The cost difference ended up at 17k....hardly the end of the world and as Forest Gump would say s**t HAPPENS Lol.

You really have to keep an ete on these Thais though..theor standards are very poor but so far they have accepted it when I have told them so snd so is not good enough and we are all getting on fine.

Had a few minor problem..some idiot decided to put some concrete down one of the newly installed darins.....luckily I decided to give them all a second check and discovered it.

Rather than going nuts I bought a few bottles of Thai Whiskey after work which loosened the tongues of a couple of the lads who pointed the finger at the culprit. Turned out to be a female so she has gone.

The sceptic tank was too deep in the ground and they worked out in there little head water can't run up hill......hired a small manual crane for 300 baht dug it out and raised it to the right position.

Everything else has gone fine and exactly 4 weeks down the line they have started building the outer walls.

I used to work in wall insulation so I am not easily sold on it's abilities to keep a house ultra cool. I have so many large windows going to the expense of 200 wide Superblocks simply isn't worth it unless you are prepared to double galze as well which I am certainly not willing to do. The cost simply isn't worth it and where our house is wouldn't add 10 baht to the value.

I decided to go for q con blocks 7.5, with 6.5 wide concrete blocks on the inside where the toilets are and a cavity between them. Internally anywhere there is water eg bathrooms..kitchen Laundry I will use concrete blocks.

As the columns are 200 it leaves enough space to fit gyproc sheets on the internal walls without the metal frame making contact with the outer walls. On the bedroom side of toilets I intend to dry line with gyproc rather than plaster walls as I have never seen a decent finish inside a condo or a house in Thailand where concrete and plaster is concerned.....looks like orange peel gone bad with brush strokes added for fun.

I will be making all my door frames myself as ready made frames in Thailand are way too much like hard work and give very little leeway when fitting doors to them. I will be making up frames to fit the doors and walls not walls to fit door frames. It by far the easiest way and if prehung in kit fashion you can fit one in minutes with equal spacing all the way round and get a perfect finish. I will have to check out the timber costs in the area but I can easily get what I need from Bang Po and my guy can bring it down in his car.

Heading to Don Muang in an hour can't wait to get back and stick the level on the walls lol

The roofers I brought in have been working away while we have been in Bangkok which was always the plan. Pictures taken a couple of day ago

I have just about gone as far as I want to go until after Songkran when I will have more time to be on the job.

Not a lot to tell other than the original quote of 55k the shop said was not the same when the roofers arrived and seen the job. They also tossed the shops plan in the bin and did it their way LOL Only in Thailand.

I now have 5 gable ends instead of 4 like the shop I bought the material from suggested

I think it look ok but still have to fly down and inspect it close up. Dreading it but My girls father is no one's fool and he reckons they have done a very good job.

Hopefull I can afford the time in the next couple of weeks to fly down for a quick look

We were up to roof level on the 28th of December including building concrete block internal walls for the store, kitchen and toilets.

We worked 7 X 6 day weeks so I was happy with that......the roof was supposed to take 2 weeks it's taken 4 weeks.

The gables have been filled in but they haven't done the soffit as they said it wasn't included in the price

Stuff the cost I will have my own guys do that as I just want to see the back of them.

TBH it feels great to have gotten to this stage without too much hassle and as my own guys are very good at internal finishing I feel a lot more relaxed.

Won't be playing much football in my front garden but hate gardening anyway and we did get the land free...........got enough room at the back for a pool which we are considering doing or not as we have a 5 year old.

Note the front wall...........remember this is Thailand.

I gave my guy the drawing of the position of the front gate.

My Girls father tells us he need to reduce the size of the land he is giving us by 1 meter.

Facing our house his remaining land is on the right

So my guy measures to the centre of the gate from the side he just moved 1 meter but doesn't take the metre off the measurement.

Great thing about using your own guy and his people when they mess up.....you pay them to do it again LOL